A new study reported that a huge number of younger Americans are experiencing pains of arthritis more than what had been predicted earlier. According to the study data, roughly 91 million people were found to have arthritis in the year 2015. Out of these, one third was of the age between 18-60 years.
Dr. David Felson, Professor of medicine at Boston University, said that the ratio of people reporting arthritis pain rose by 68 percent. He also said that arthritis is a common disease, and it is our fault that we underestimate that it is such common in occurrence.
Felson also mentioned that in the previous researches, only the data provided by the doctors were used for the estimation, and thus, only people, who were diagnosed, were included in the data. He also told that people aged below 65 were when asked whether they had arthritis said no even without any diagnosis and this largely affected the estimation.
Felson noted that doctors, most of the times, miss the diagnosis of arthritis among young people, because they don’t expect such a condition in the patients. The reasons for the development of arthritis in young men and women include obesity and stress on the joints caused due to sports or excessive workout.
Felson was helped by Dr. S. Reza Jafarzadeh, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Boston University. Dr. Jafarzadeh in data collection data for then study and more than 33,600 people, who actively participated in the U.S. National Health Interview Survey, 2015 were included in the research.
In the study, Felson and Jafarzadeh considered both the categories of people. i.e., those, who were diagnosed with arthritis and those, who only reported to have chronic joint pain. It was noted that among this population of under 65 years, joint pain was reported by 19 percent men and 17 percent women without any clinical diagnosis.
It was observed that arthritis was dominant among 30 percent of the men and 31% women, who were below 65. For the men above 65 years of age, the chance of developing arthritis was 56%, while for the women of the same age group, it was 69%.
Source: drugs.com
